


To Be True (Delayed Reaction Remix)

by helens78



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Collars, Dom/sub, Kink, M/M, Remix, bondage (held down)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-10
Updated: 2010-06-10
Packaged: 2017-10-10 01:20:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/93650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helens78/pseuds/helens78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney and John have always made things work, even though John wanted kink and Rodney was only doing it to make John happy.  But what if it isn't just to make John happy after all this time?  That's a good thing, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Be True (Delayed Reaction Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Too Good (the YKIOK,IJNMK remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/86361) by [Telesilla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telesilla/pseuds/Telesilla). 



> This is based on [Ruth's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/telesilla) story [Too Good (The YKIOK, IJNMK Remix)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/86361), which in turn was a remix of [Crysothemis's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/crysothemis) story [Too Good](http://archiveofourown.org/external_works/705). Many thanks go to Crysothemis for being okay with a sequel to the remix, to Ruth for the permission to do a years-later sequel, and to Travis and Ruth for the support when I was writing this one. And to Grant for everything.
> 
> There is no good guy and no bad guy in this story; I have every possible amount of sympathy for both of them. And I have faith that they'll work it out.

Rodney walks into John's room, and he's got something in his palm. When he hands it to John--it's a piece of leather with a funny little thing on the end of it, kind of a filigree sort of thing--John thinks real hard at it: _Glow? Float? Change colors?_ None of it works, so he looks up to Rodney and says, "I don't get it. What's it supposed to do?"

"What's it...? You don't...?" Rodney turns bright red, all the way up to his receding hairline, and tries to grab it back. But no, hey, now it's John's, and John pokes at the filigree thing and looks at it from every angle.

Then he notices the other end of the leather strap, the thing that's kind of like a hook.

He blinks at it, seeing it all over again, and he's not sure what his face says, but Rodney actually takes a step backwards and puts his hands up in response.

"Bad idea," Rodney says. "I mean. I wasn't _thinking_, I should have asked first, I--I'm sorry. Bad idea."

"Where did you even _get_ it?" John asks quietly.

"I bribed someone." Rodney's jaw works for a few seconds, and then he sets it, and his eyes narrow, and he crosses his arms over his chest. "Teyla has a friend who makes jewelry. I offered to bump up the retrofit of the door circuitry in the southeast tower in exchange for..."

"This," John says. He can't even look at it; hell, just feeling it in his hand makes his stomach clench up and his face feel tight. "Jesus, Rodney, I thought we'd been _over_ this. I don't _need_\--"

"I didn't think you _did_!" Rodney throws his arms up. "It wasn't like that! I wasn't thinking, oh, what can I do to randomly fuck things up with John _this_ time, I just--"

He stops short, and John feels the soft edges of the leather cutting into his palm, he's holding the collar so hard. "You just _what_?" John asks, voice very low.

"I just wanted it," Rodney answers, every bit as quiet.

"_You_\--" John closes his eyes, tempted to throw the collar right back in Rodney's face. "I need some space," he says instead. "Give me some space, okay?"

"Of course," Rodney murmurs. He heads for the door, but while John hears the _whoosh_ of the door, he doesn't hear Rodney's footsteps going through it.

"What?"

"Like, 'space' as in, 'go away right now', or, like, 'space' as in, 'I'm breaking up with you'?"

"Oh, Jesus, Rodney," John moans, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "I'm not breaking up with you."

"So how long should I--"

"Twenty-four hours," John says--it's not like he knows how much time he needs, how much space, but God, Rodney can be like a dog with a bone sometimes. "Okay? Just twenty-four hours, and..."

"Not including work, of--"

"_Rodney_."

"I'm going," Rodney says. "John?"

John looks up. Rodney's lost that flushed color; now he just looks worried, really worried, about like he did when they got that false power reading on the ZPM monitor that, if it had been true, would have meant all power on Atlantis would be gone in twenty minutes and they were all going to _die_.

It's kind of flattering, almost, in a weird, Rodney sort of way, so John sighs and tilts his head back. "Yeah?"

"Just--I'm sorry."

"I know."

* * *

The first thing John does is check the work orders for the last few weeks, finding out when that door circuitry retrofit went in. He has to read the dates three times before he's sure he's reading them correctly, and then he starts doing the math over and over again, double-and-triple-checking.

Five weeks. _Five weeks._ And that's five weeks since the retrofit went _in_; a little more digging shows that it took a week to get the retrofit _done_. And then there's the fact that Rodney made the bargain before any work went in, and...

Maybe two months since Rodney made arrangements to get the collar made. Maybe more. And how the hell long did he sit on it before he actually _asked_?

He sits back in his desk chair and turns the collar over in his hands. The filigree's way too much for him--he'd have been happy with a plain band of leather with a snap on it--but Rodney had this _made for him_.

And didn't tell him about it. For two months.

John's stomach feels a little lurchy; he figures some fresh air won't kill him.

* * *

A month ago, Rodney slid two fingers up John's ass and said, "I think I'm going to be at this for a while. Want me to hold you down?"

_Yes, yes, God, don't ask me,_ John thought desperately, but he didn't say anything. He crossed his wrists over his head, looked up at Rodney, and tried to give his best _Yes, please_ expression; Rodney's answering look was one of utter smugness.

It made John look away, tensing up around Rodney's fingers until Rodney had the rhythm going strong again. _Yeah, yeah, you know how to work me, we both know it, I'm easy, fine--_

But the way it felt to be pinned down and finger-fucked, the way it felt to have Rodney's mouth moving across John's shoulder, over his cheek--hot and sloppy, like Rodney was too turned on to really _aim_\--

God, John wanted it to be good; he wanted it to be _so_ good, to be _awesome_, and it was _so close_, it was so close, they were _almost there_...

"Do you want to come for me?" Rodney asked, and that shattered it; John made himself nod anyway, made himself move his hips down against Rodney's hand.

_Yeah_, he thought bitterly, _I'm sure _all_ of this is for you,_ but when Rodney nuzzled his neck and pushed up hard against his prostate, it didn't really matter; John came anyway, with Rodney murmuring stupid fake compliments in his ear.

* * *

John's got his boots and socks off and his pants legs rolled up; his feet dangle in the air, only about ten feet off the water. He can feel the spray on his toes, on his ankles.

He hears the door swoosh open behind him, and he doesn't have to look back to know who it is--not least because Rodney starts talking. "I know it hasn't been twenty-four hours," he says.

"'S okay," John mutters.

Rodney drops down next to him. "I just thought, we both really _really_ suck at talking, and I guess--I figured maybe I should track you down first and explain."

John looks up at him, one eyebrow raised. Rodney sighs and looks down at his hands.

"It really was just for you at first." He looks over at John. "I mean--it's not that I don't like having sex with you, of course I liked that part, I just--"

"Rodney," John says. He looks down past his feet to the water. "I was there, you know? You don't have to go over the last three years."

"Okay, except--" Rodney takes a deep breath--John can actually see Rodney's chest expand out of the corner of his eye--and says, blurts, "Except not the last three years, okay? More like the last two years and.... I don't know, two or three months."

John's stomach goes from lurchy to full-out somersault mode. "You've been--you _wanted_\--nine _months_?"

"I meant to tell you," Rodney says plaintively. "But then--it just, one thing led to another, and we weren't having kinky sex that _often_ anymore, and I just thought... maybe the collar would say it better than I could. I kind of suck at this, you know."

"No shit," John mutters. But he's thinking, _Nine months_, and he can't help tallying up the kinds of kinky sex they _have_ had since then. The time they wrestled and John let Rodney win--he remembers how it looked like Rodney was really trying. The time they used Rodney's sleep mask as a blindfold--Rodney had lasted a _really_ long time, and John thought it was maybe that he couldn't get off because he wasn't really into it. "Were you trying to make it good for me?" he blurts out.

"What?"

"Nothing," John says, shaking his head. "Never mind. Just..." He sighs. "Nine fucking _months_, Rodney."

"Um... I'm sorry?"

John looks up, glaring at him. "You're _sorry_?"

"Well, I'm sorry I didn't speak up faster, but what, I'm supposed to be sorry that fucking you the way you _like_ being fucked turns me on sometimes now?"

"The way I--_sometimes_?"

"I don't even know why I'm _apologizing_! This is _good_, right? This is a _good_ thing?"

"Lying to me for nine months was a good thing?"

"I mean, yes, it's taken some getting used to, and--wait, _lying_? Oh, that is so not fair--"

"Like it's fair to me to change the goddamned rules all of a sudden?"

"Rules, _what_ rules--we didn't _have_ rules, I mean, I would have--if you'd wanted rules, I would have--"

"Stop--just _stop_," John says, hand slashing through the air to cut him off. "Just--do you know how this _sounds_? When _I_ want kink, it's this scary thing, you're _abusing_ me--"

"I said I was sorry for that," Rodney says, very quietly, like it hurts him to even remember it. John knows how _that_ feels.

"But when _you_ want kink, I'm supposed to say, hey, great, gimme the collar and let's hop to? You think it's really that easy?"

Rodney opens his mouth and closes it again, then shakes his head. "I don't know. I didn't realize you thought that I--that I _still_\--"

"That you were still disgusted by me?"

"John, _Jesus_," Rodney says, and his hand comes up to the back of John's neck. And, God, that feels so _good_, feels so _right_\--always has, ever since the first time he did it--completely by accident--and John can't make himself shrug it away. "You never disgusted me. How can you even _think_ that?"

"I didn't _really_," John mumbles.

"Bullshit."

"No, I--" John sighs and tilts his head back, lets Rodney's hand support its weight. "It's not like you ever _said_, 'hey, you know that kinky stuff you like? I like some of it, too.' I was kinda out there on my own."

"Hello?" Rodney squeezes John's neck, which gives John the annoying if expected Pavlovian response of getting hard. "Trying to do that _now_, remember? I don't _want_ you to be on your own."

Rodney's hand keeps on squeezing--somewhere between a neck massage and that solid tight _grip_ that always makes John want to slide straight to his knees--and John groans softly. "Yeah," John murmurs. "I know."

"I don't always know what I'm doing, and _no_, I don't know why I thought a collar--I guess it was P6J-797--"

"Almost three months ago."

"--right, but it made me think--maybe I should _do_ something about it instead of just... not talking, still."

John sighs. Rodney scoots a little closer, hand resting on the back of John's neck.

"I mean... don't you _want_ to... I mean, okay, if not the collar, then there's other things I like," Rodney says hesitantly. "I like--"

John holds up a hand. "Can we--not go through a list of kinks right now? I don't think I can handle that."

"Okay." Rodney exhales softly and starts squeezing the back of John's neck again; John can't tell if it's the world's worst neck rub or if Rodney's trying to do something toppy or if he's just kind of groping at random. Rodney probably doesn't know, either, probably isn't even thinking of it.

But he's not here because he feels _obligated_, which is something, anyway.

"Just--tell me I didn't blow my one chance at this," Rodney says softly. "That's all I'm asking for."

John bites back his first response, which is _Don't be a fucking idiot_; even he knows there's a better way to get his point across. He turns to face Rodney and looks at him, looks him right in the eyes.

"I'm willing to give it a shot if you are."

"That was my line," Rodney says, but John's too busy kissing him for the pout to really settle in.

_-end-_


End file.
